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Advisory group

Dr Jose Manuel Braga Madeira Serôdio

President INR, Portugal

A law graduate with a diploma in Logistics and Science of Law from Lisbon’s College of Law, Jose has since lectured on the Rights of Disabled People and published several papers and articles on the topic.

Jose has served on several working groups concerning the Rights of Disabled Persons at national and international levels and was the Chairman of the General Assembly, and held positions on the Advisory Council and Boards of several Disabilities Associations. He has been a member of the Sport National Council and Ethics in Sport and Safety Council and has worked as an advisor and assistant to a number of Ministers.

Keith Ferguson

Keith is an avid disabled football fan. He has a first-hand understanding of the many challenges that disabled supporters face when attending football matches.

Keith previously served as CAFE’s Western European Development Officer, working closely with disabled supporters in the region towards improving access. This role helped Keith to gain a broad understanding access to football stadia and the challenges facing disabled fans in Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Holland and France, and so by enabling him to better advise disabled supporters and their clubs in Scotland.

Keith is a Heart of Midlothian supporter and has been the long-serving secretary of the club’s Disabled Supporters Association. Keith is also a coordinator of the Murray Foundation as well as chairman of the Scottish Disabled Supporters Association and the Edinburgh Limb Loss Association.

Michał Fitas

Polish disabled fans representative

Michał is the Vice-Director of Poland's biggest DSA - Klub Kibiców Niepełnosprawnych at Slask Wroclaw. Michał also works for the Polish FA on coordinating the creation of new DSAs in Poland. He is a Slask Wroclaw fan and has celebral palsy.

During UEFA EURO 2012, Michał worked voluntarily in the Fan’s Embassy in Wroclaw. He attended 9 matches during the tournament, including the final in Kiev. He also attended matches at the 2006 FIFA World Cup and UEFA EURO 2008.

Michał attended the first CAFE European conference at Wembley Stadium in September 2011, where he and Pawel Parus spoke about the experiences of disabled fans across Poland.

Anthony Joy

Disabled fans representative

Anthony has been an Arsenal season ticket holder since 1990. As a wheelchair user, He has travelled around Europe for several years to watch Arsenal play, missing only 2 European away games in the last five seasons. Anthony recognises the importance of feeding back on his experiences as a disabled fan so that others may feel both informed and encouraged to travel to support their teams.

Anthony was the first member of the Arsenal disability away scheme; automatic issuing of tickets for each away game - bringing parity for disabled fans with other away scheme members at Arsenal. He liaises closely with the Arsenal Disability Liaison Team, and recently met with the ADLT and stadium management on behalf of other disabled Arsenal fans, to address issues with disabled access to the lifts at Emirates Stadium. These have been positively resolved.

Anthony is an active user of social media to highlight the standard of disabled facilities at football grounds in the UK. This led to Anthony featuring in nationwide media coverage in April 2014, and being mentioned in the House of Lords.

Raymond Klaasen

Dutch disabled fans representative

Raymond is a disabled Vitesse Arnhem fan, and is an active member of the Roller Side DSA at the club. In September 2015, Raymond will become the Chair of Roller Side.

Raymond has been involved with inclusion and equality organisations for many years, and as a lawyer he has a strong understanding of international disability legislation.

As a Co-founder of Miva United, the national disabled supporters association of the Netherlands, Raymond is working to improve the matchday experience of many disabled Dutch fans.

Allan MacKillop

Scottish disabled fans representative

Allan has been a Hearts season ticket holder for 30 years. As a wheelchair user with Osteogenisis Imperfecta, he has travelled extensively around Europe, Japan and America watching both Hearts and Scotland. Allan is also an active member of the Hearts Disabled Supporters club.

Working as an IT consultant, Allan is also passionately involved in the promotion of disability interest networks within both private and public sector business.

Allan attended the first European CAFE Conference “Total Football, Total Access, Total Sense” at Wembley Stadium in September 2011. Since then, he has continued to develop his relationship with CAFE by providing stadia reports during his many visits abroad and sharing experiences of his travels.

Gabriel Mayr

Brazilian NGO representative

Gabriel Mayr is a Physical Education teacher from Rio de Janeiro, and started to be involved with Paralympic sports in 2001 at his first year of university. Gabriel mastered in in Adapted Physical Education.

Gabriel worked for the English five-a-side national team for one year as assistant coach, as well as volunteering at the Royal National College for the Blind.

During his masters Gabriel promoted a Urece athlete to be the first blind Brazilian alpine skier, in the mountains of the Czech Republic. After this project he started the 5-a-side football in Brazil.

At Urece, his work was recognized by the UN, the CSR program of FIFA and task forces from UNICEF. Gabriel's role at Urece also played a part in establishing the Sports for Social Change and Streetfootball World networks. Gabriel was awarded young social entrepreneur in 2013 from the Rio de Janeiro Commercial association and has also been inducted into the Shell LiveWire International Hall of Fame.

Paweł Parus

Polish disabled fans representative

Paweł is the President of the Klub Kibiców Niepełnosprawnych DSA at Slask Wroclaw - the largest DSA in Poland. Pawel has been President of the DSA since 2008, and works to empower disabled fans at the club.

Paweł also works as a training officer for various NGOs in Poland. He provides awareness training and encourages the integration of disabled people into everyday life in Poland. He has coordinated a number of projects in the field and acted as a consultant in preparation for UEFA EURO 2012. He received the 'Wroclaw without Barriers' certificate for his work.

In 2011 Paweł attended the first CAFE European conference and spoke along with Michał Fitas on the experiences disabled people had faced attending football matches in Poland.

Volker Sieger

German National Disabled Fans Representative

Volker is the Scientific Director of the Institute for Barrier Free Design and Mobility (IbGM) in Germany. Volker has been the vice-Chairman of the Federal Association of Disabled Football Fans (BBAG) in Germany since 1999.

Volker is an expert in the field of accessibility to buildings and transport, and represents both the IbGM and the German Disability Council in several standardisation bodies and accessibility working groups on national and European level. BBAG is an umbrella organisation which brings together disabled and non-disabled football fans, and disability liaison officers of the clubs.

Among other things, Volker has been involved in the developing of the first guide for accessible stadia in Germany, published by German Bundesliga (DFL) in 2009.

Teresa Silva

Founder and Managing Director, TAMBIEN

Teresa always practiced sports in general and air sports in particular, until she had a paragliding accident in 1989 when preparing for the Austrian World Championship. This episode would change her life, leaving her paraplegic.

As a wheelchair user, Teresa became more aware of the difficulties that disabled people face when practicing sports. In April 1998, Teresa starts to practice adapted alpine skiing and gets involved with several disability related organisations. In January 2000, she initiates the Santiveri Team to compete professionally in adapted ski. And through the success of this team a more ambitious project starts: the Fundación También which is launched in December 2000.

Since then, the Foundation has been working continuously and actively towards the inclusivity for disabled people in the world of adapted sports, such as cycling, canoeing, sailing, paddle, diving, hiking, and other open air sports that promote the contact with nature and enable its participants to share this experiences with family and friends, guaranteeing a standard development for disabled people’s free time and hobbies. Nowadays, Teresa practices several sports and competes professionally in sailing and alpine skiing.

Mauana Simas

Brazilian NGO representative

Mauana Simas is a Brazilian journalist based in Rio de Janeiro. Since 2009, Mauana has been working with accessible media, especially on television.

During the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Mauana coordinated the audio descriptive commentary project delivered by CAFE and Urece in 4 host cities. She works as the Communication Coordinator for Urece, and is also a co-founder of Nós Todos Filmes, a film-producer company that adapts audiovisual content for disabled people.

In 2013, Nós Todos Filmes won the Shell Live Wire prize of youth entrepreneurship. Mauana continues to work to improve accessibility for partially sighted and blind people, and was named as one of ThinkOlga.com's Inspirational Women of 2014.

Charly Simo

French disabled fans representative

Charly is the Lead on Sport and Leisure at La Federation des Aveugles de France, working on increased access and inclusion for partially sighted and blind people through sport.

Charly has been working with partially sighted and blind people for over 12 years, and worked with CAFE to train audio-descriptive commentators ahead of UEFA EURO 2016.

Charly is himself a former professional footballer, and was the coach of France's blind football team which won a silver medal at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

Johan ten Hoove

Dutch national disabled fans representative

Johan has been Chair of the Rolly Side DSA at FC Groningen for the past 8 years.

In December 2014 Johan became President of Miva United, the newly-founded Dutch national disabled supporters association. Johan works with disabled fans and the KNVB to improve the matchday experience across the Netherlands.

Johan has supported FC Groningen for over 40 years and is the Commissioner of the club's fan committee. Johan also attended CAFE's first European conference in 2011 and took part in the first DSA 'twinning' in collaboration with the Hibernian DSA.

Geert Thomas

Belgium National Disabled Fans Representative

Geert is a wheelchair user and has always been aware of the major issues faced by disabled people.

Geert has travelled to more than 20 countries worldwide and has studied in ‘Social Readaptation Science’ and 'Management, organisation and administration'. In the near future, Geert will also conduct scientific research on human resource management related issues during his current master education.

Geert is also involved in several (voluntary) functions: since 2002, and as former vice-chairman, he is a member of the Board of Directors at the Accessible Transport Service “Mobiel vzw”. Furthermore, Geert is also an appreciated member of the Board of Directors at the organisation 'Absoluut vzw'. His experience also includes a 7 year membership at the official advisory group regarding accessibility for disabled people in the city of Leuven.

Geert is a huge football fan and strongly supports the principle of Design for All in and outside football stadiums. Intro vzw and Geert took initiative in order to set up Inside, the Belgian national Disabled Supporters Association. Geert is Chairman of Inside and is also Chairman of RSCA Purple Wheels, the local DSA of RSC Anderlecht F.C.

Marina Cardoso Van Zeller

Vice-President INR, Portugal

Marina originally graduated in Administration and Management of Enterprises before undertaking a master’s degree in marketing of services.

Having previously worked in the Management, Marketing and Events Promotion at Associação Industrial Portuguesa, Marina is also an experienced teacher. She has been an organizer and speaker at a number of international workshops and summits including the Workshop of Leading Centers in Europe in Stockholm and Basel, the ICCA Sector Venue International Client business workshop in Montreal, Canada and the NATO Summit 2010.